PCM

This article in today's NY Post says that Travis Zajac might be gone as soon as UND's season ends.

I don't have a clue as to what's going on with the women's hockey team, but I do know that the problems aren't going to be solved by airing dirty laundry on an Internet message board.

Newsday columnist Shaun Powell: NCAA's run afoul on Bradley Braves

Don't you think that by associating a nasty little man with real living, breathing people, it tends to stereotype those people by implying that they have similar characteristics and attributes?

Yeah. A whole 250 miles due north. That's tempting, but a couple of USCHO big-shots are coming to Grand Forks to cover the West Regional and I've volunteered to help them. I don't expect to have much free time on my hands, but who knows. I'll try to look you up if it works out.

No, I didn't hear about that. Could you PM me and let me know what happened?

From The Observer: 'Fighting Irish' moniker found offensive

From the Green Mill, Tim Hennessy and Scott Swygman are the hosts with Sioux hockey coach Dave Hakstol and players Mike Prpich and Matt Smaby. TH: It is the NCAA West Regional hockey tournament at the Ralph with the Minnesota Golden Gophers meeting the Holy Cross Crusaders at 5:30 on Friday night and the Fighting Sioux meeting the Michigan Wolverines 45 minutes after they

And speaking of hypocrisy, it'll be interesting to see how much the Pontiac name and logo are mentioned and on display this weekend. We need to forget about the center-ice logo. The biggest slap in the face UND can give the NCAA is to have the hockey players celebrating their trip to the Frozen Four with the Fighting Sioux name and logo proudly displayed on their chests. Let's not forget that if the NCAA had its way, UND would have been forced to wear generic uniforms at the West Regionals.

My dog picture is going to get a real workout if this stuff continues all week.

Oh, so you're going to use facts now!

Agreed. This is something that happens at all rinks hosting NCAA playoff events.

When did anyone ever riot after winning the Final Five? Or am I missing something?

I know exactly what you mean!

You're right. I found it in this USCHO 2002 West Region preview:

Can you cite the specific rule and where it's written? I'm not saying that you're wrong, but I'm wondering if it's a hard and fast rule or something that's done as a courtesy. I'd think that if the host team were playing in the tournament, it'd have first dibs on its own locker room.

What rules give him that right?

I was down by the players' lounge this afternoon. What DVD was showing on the big screen? Michigan vs. Michigan State. The lads are smart and they see what you see. By the way, as a result of my trip to ice level, I can confirm that Drew Stafford's leg was NOT amputated. I'll now lay to rest that ugly rumor I started.

Does that mean that the Standing Rock Sioux are disrespecting themselves by choosing to identify with the Sioux name? I'm trying to understand your reasoning for even bringing this up.

Neither is the Sioux nickname.

Unless I'm mistaken, the photos were arranged in the order the teams were seeded in the tournamnet.

Four times is all it will take.

I was sitting behind and above Briggs when he took himself out of the game. Minnesota's team defense, overall, was that bad. It certainly wasn't only Briggs' fault that SCSU scored five goals while he was in the game. However, when a team such as SCSU, which had problems scoring three goals in a game, puts 8 on the scoreboard and wins with a bad-angle shot in overtime, there's good reason to be concerned about goaltending and team defense. After UND went up 5-1, the Sioux probably sat back more than they should have. That's when the shot totals went way up in SCSU's favor. The Huskies were also throwing the puck on net as much as humanly possible. At the end of the second period, UND still had a three-goal lead. I didn't get nervous until SCSU scored a flukey goal to make it 5-3 with about 15 minutes left in the third period.

By the way, the YaneA's Mary Tyler-Moore scenario of a joke slipping past isn't unusual. When I was a young reporter at the Bismarck Tribune, as a joke I wrote a news story using every tired old cliche in the book. I figured the editor would recognize it as a prank, have a good laugh and use the real story I wrote. Instead, she ran my joke story! And here's what's truly funny about that episode. I decided to keep my mouth shut about it until somebody noticed. Nobody ever said a single word about it! I'm not sure what that said about our staff. Either A) my colleagues thought I really was that bad a writer, B) they didn't know bad writing when they saw it or C) they weren't reading their own newspaper. Another time, as an April Fools joke, someone planted a phony death notice for a famous old person (ex-president, maybe?). The wire editor, who came to work alone about 4 a.m., took it seriously and frantically began to assemble a big story about the famous person's death. Fortunately, the story never made it into print, but I've never seen an editor so angry. The person who planted the fake story got into quite a bit of trouble. I also found out that editors don't appreciate fake errors. The Trib printed a weekly entertainment magazine and, in one issue, the cover story was about "Art in the park." I found an "Fa" in the same type font and size and carefully pasted it on the cover so my editing job was practically invisible. Then I took it to the editor on duty and said, "Did you see this?" He about had a heart attack. After he recovered, he chewed me out and told me to never joke about such things again.